


Shadows - Vignettes

by HufflepuffleMarauder



Series: Shadows [2]
Category: Kung Fu Panda (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Deleted Scenes, Gen, Team as Family, focus on friendship between characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26793001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HufflepuffleMarauder/pseuds/HufflepuffleMarauder
Summary: A collection of deleted/extended/altered scenes from my long fic "We Work in the Shadows". They either lend themselves towards building the universe or simply showing more of the relationships between the characters.
Relationships: Crane/Viper (Kung Fu Panda), Furious Five - Relationship
Series: Shadows [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953826
Kudos: 11





	1. Po's first night

**Author's Note:**

> I will preface this by saying - you don't have to read this. This is simply a place to dump all of my compulsive writing and I thought it would be nice to share with everyone reading Shadows since the universe is pretty vast. All of these scenes got cut because A) They were too mundane B) I found a better way to write them C) They were just filler and made the chapter too long. 
> 
> The following scene goes between chapters 3 and 4 - Po's first night with the Five.

With a towel, a pair of shorts and an oversized shirt, Po trotted into their little bathroom. Fan Hai had pointed him vaguely in the direction of it, thoughtlessly as he joked with Wu Cong. He placed his things on the lid of the toilet and closed the door with a snap. Doing a little circle, he examined his surroundings with an eager eye.

Po had still not taken the time to process the situation he was in.

He was in the house of the _Furious Five!_ The mysterious group whom he’d had an unhealthy obsession with for two years. All those nights spent staying up at ungodly hours of the morning trying to find their identities were reaching their satisfying repercussions. He’d never given the possibility of the Five hiding right under his nose a possibility. Their cover was undeniably good, and Po could easily see how he was the first person to gain that knowledge. Even if it was by… unconventional means.

The guilt of having followed Ying became prevalent again. It was obvious she was put off by their unfortunate first meeting. Po hoped that she wouldn’t hold that against him, it was extremely out of character for him anyway.

Stepping into the shower he shivered at the first streams of cold water. There was a mirror opposite, and through the steamed glass he could see the round outline of his reflection. He sighed deeply and turned away. Now more than ever he was desperate to get into shape. The three guys made him feel incredibly inadequate. Po had never had too many qualms with his image, obviously he _wanted_ to someday turn his fat into muscle, but he wasn’t too bothered about it since his hatred for exercise had yet to leave. But Fan Hai hid his impressive build under loose shirts and jackets. And Wu Cong never used his entrancing agility in public. Jia’s height leant to his slim silhouette, one he almost squashed down with those hats of his.

While Po still held onto his baby fat. His dad always thought it was cute, but he was about to turn twenty for god’s sake, surely a glow-up would appear soon? 

He showered quickly and pulled on the clothes Wu Cong dug out for him, thanking his luck they were a decent fit. He opened the door and stepped out to a silent, empty hallway. Their house didn’t exactly seem like a maze, but he still hadn’t been shown around enough to know where to go. Tapping his foot nervously, he struggled against just venturing round or calling out for help. 

“Did they not tell you where anything is?”

Po turned round and Yu Ting was standing at the end of the hallway, looking at him with sympathy. Her long hair dripped water droplets on the carpet and her face was shiny with a recent skin routine. By the looks of it, she’d just stepped out of the shower herself, wearing a set of satin pyjamas with patterns of oriental birds printed across the fabric. 

“No… they just told me where the bathroom is.” Po responded slowly, pointing behind him.

She rolled her eyes. “ _Honestly_ , Fan was supposed to show you round!” She huffed. “Never mind, I’ll do it.” She outstretched her hand and beckoned him closer.

He edged towards her hesitantly, though she didn’t scare him like Ying initially did. Her whole appearance was much more friendly and almost comforting amongst the current uncertainty of the situation he was in. But remembering that she was one of the Furious Five was… more than intimidating if he had to be honest. The knowledge that this short, kind-faced girl could quite literally stick him in an early grave put him on edge a little.

If Yu Ting noticed his hesitation, she was kind enough not to mention it. “The bathroom you were in is for the guys, which is why it’s so… empty.” Po looked behind him and had to agree with her. The only objects on display were toothbrushes, toothpaste, a hair comb and a stray razor. Certainly not enough evidence of five people using the same bathroom. “The one me and Ying share is here.” She lead him along the hallway and across the landing to another door. “You can take a look if you want.”

Po, despite feeling he wasn’t welcome to, opened the door and peered inside. And sure enough, it was a girl’s bathroom. Makeup was strewn around the sink and hairbrushes poked out from the windowsill. Their bathroom was certainly larger (he wondered who made that decision) and filled with little overflowing baskets holding various items he couldn’t even identify.

“Okay it looks messy,” Yu Ting said from behind him. “but we haven’t had the chance to clean up recently.”

“I can’t talk,” He confessed, closing the door on his only experience with a girl’s world. “my room is pretty similar.”

“But it’s not like I’ll be seeing it any time soon.” He added sadly as a muttered afterthought.

Yu Ting took his arm sympathetically and lead him away and across to the landing. “I know this is hard, and the situation is not ideal, but it’s really complicated right now.” She said, voice sweet like honey. “I’d let you go home if I could, but I’m sorry sweetie, it’s out of my hands.” Though Po never had a maternal figure in his life, Yu Ting certainly felt very reminiscent of one. With nothing but kindness shown to him he felt himself warm up to her personality immediately.

“Over here we have our rooms.” She pointed towards a long hallway with six identical doors sitting either side of the walls, facing each other with familiarity. “On the right, Fan, mine and Ying’s, then on the left, Cong and Jia’s.”

She appeared to have missed one.

“What about the last room? Is that Shifu’s?” He asked innocently.

She turned to him with an odd look, fiddling with the ends of her damp hair. “Shifu doesn’t live here,” She said abruptly. “that’s just a… spare… room.”

Po nodded slowly. “So is that where I’m staying then?”

“No! No, it’s like a – a storage room… thing.” She seemed a little alarmed at his questions, and quickly started to make her way down the stairs. “You’ll probably be sharing with one of us.”

Po’s stomach dropped. “But – but I don’t think they like me!” He hissed at her over the banister as she was already halfway down.

“It’s fine Po! You can share with me if you want!” She reassured him with a smile over her shoulder.

He skidded down the bend and ran after her with worry. “Wait, Yu Ting –“

But she was already nearing the kitchen. “Hey guys, where is –!” She called out.

“Jia lost rock-paper-scissors!” Fan Hai’s triumphant voice interrupted her. “So he’s the one who has to share with Po!”

Wu Cong whooped in the background and Jia simply groaned. “It’s not like this game is fair anyway.” He grumbled.

“ _Guys!_ ” She hissed angrily. “You are being _very – loud_!”

Po creeped down the rest of the stairs and peeked at them from behind her. They froze comically at the sight of him. No one said anything and the awkwardness just increased from there.

Yu Ting tutted loudly at them and turned back to Po. “Ignore them, you’re sharing with me.”

“No, no, no.” Fan Hai shook his head and went to whisper in her ear. Though his version of whispering was still incredibly audible to Po. “He _followed_ Ying, I don’t trust him so you’re not sharing a room with him.”

Po couldn’t find it in him to defend his reputation.

“Are you kidding me? I could beat you up if I wanted to.” She retorted at normal volume.

“Wait, let’s just compromise,” Jia stepped between them. “how about _I_ share with Yu and Po takes my room.” He shrugged as if he’d found the solution to all their problems, and Po couldn’t deny it sounded like a good idea.

“No!” Wu Cong interjected and Jia deflated with a sigh. “You lost rock-paper-scissors!”

“Oh come _on_ , it’s just a game!”

“But the reason we did that game is because we still don’t trust him so he can’t be left alone!”

For being spies, they certainly weren’t subtle.

Po waved a weak hand. “I’m – I’m still here.”

Jia and Fan Hai visibly winced. “Shit I’m sorry.” Wu Cong apologised quickly, surprisingly sounding very genuine. “It’s not you – really, it’s not – it’s more what we’ve been instructed to do, if you know what I mean.”

Po raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“Don’t look at us like that.” Wu Cong chastised jokingly. “We don’t mean any harm.”

Jia gave him a disbelieving look and simply gestured to Po with resignation. “Come on, I’ll show you my room.”

Following him resolutely, he could hear their hushed whispers from the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also these are very short, hence the title of "vignettes" haha. 
> 
> This one I cut because it dragged out the first few hours of the story far too much. I'd already spent 3 long chapters on a small time span - and I don't want to bore you.


	2. Cong and Fan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An extension of the first scene from chapter 8

Walking down the Thousand steps wasn’t as bad with Cong to talk to. They discussed minor things, like random memes Ying sent to the group chat at midnight to much more serious topics like their upcoming mission and, of course, Po.

“Do you know what we’re _actually_ doing in Malaysia next week?” Cong asked as they were nearing the bottom, taking out his phone and looking at the numerous emails Shifu had spammed them with.

“I don’t think Shifu knows, to be honest.” Fan said, thinking back to the goal of their mission, which was still incredibly vague. “We’ve got to find this killer –“

“Well that part’s pretty general.”

“But we don’t know who they are –“

“Making it almost impossible.”

“And there’s no information in the news –“

“Honestly useless.”

“All we know is that they’re somewhere in Malaysia’s capital.”

“Which again, is useless because Kuala Lumpur is _huge_ , this guy could be anywhere.”

Fan finished with a frustrated sigh. Cong’s interjections made him realise that this mission really _was_ impossible. He’d thought, at first, that it wouldn’t be too hard. If there was a killer with some sort of trail on them then surely they weren’t very good at covering their tracks. But then how come there was a trace of a killer… but no visual evidence? It was ridiculous, almost as if… no. No way. This was a random serial killer, not some criminal master mind.

Once approaching the innocent-looking metal door Fan unlocked it with a click of the pocket-sized remote he grabbed from the hall table. Their storage (garage, really, but they called it the storage because Shifu was terribly paranoid) was situated at the bottom of the Thousand Steps, but hidden almost behind them. To un-knowing eyes it looked like some sort of warehouse embedded into the side of the cliff, with “Property of the Jade Palace” stamped across the bottom in tiny red letters. It held their beloved car and various other technological things that were too incriminating to be kept in the house. (the truth was that they were childish enough to play around with all the cool gear that Shifu confiscated them to the storage space, knowing that they were all too lazy to venture all the way down to get it)

“Go on then,” Cong nodded his head towards the car. “you’ve got the keys, you’re driving.”

Fan unlocked the door with more aggressiveness than usual. “Since I’m driving,” He started, getting in and turning on the engine. “… you’ve got the responsibility of training Po.” He said with a smirk.

Cong wasn’t as annoyed at the prospect as Fan thought he would be. “He can’t be _that_ bad,” He said optimistically, getting in the passenger seat and turning on the radio. “he’s obsessed with kung fu, I mean have you _seen_ the way he looks at Ying? He’s only seen her do maybe two moves and he’s star-struck.”

Fan made a face. “But that won’t mean he’s good.”

Cong leaned forward to grab the remote and close the door behind them as they drove out. “All I’m saying is that he must have picked up a few moves, either by trying to learn them or without knowing.” Fan was still unconvinced, and it must have shown on his face because Cong sighed. “Give him a chance! You never know, he could be really good.”

“I just don’t think that Po is that promising, to be honest.”

It was pretty obvious he’d sugar-coated his words, and Cong just hummed in disagreement. “I think it depends on how he’s trained.”

“So… not the Shifu way?” Fan started to grin and Cong chuckled.

“Exactly! Not the Shifu way!”

Fan shook his head, also laughing. “Man Shifu really hates him, I kinda feel bad for Po, you get me?”

“If you look at it this way, you make an impulsive mistake, get knocked out by an old guy and find out that you’ve basically been kidnapped by a group of spies who made it in the news a couple of times and then told that you can’t leave by the spies because you know their secret but the old guy beats you up because he wants you to leave,” Cong narrated, ticking off each event on his fingers, then shrugged at Fan. “a shitty situation, am I right?”

Fan rubbed the back of his neck guiltily. “God I feel even worse for keeping him now…”

“But what else can we do? He’s here now, we might as well roll with it.” Cong’s optimism was refreshing after spending so much time with Jia and Ying. “It’s like what Oogway says, yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and –“

“Today is a gift alright I get it!” Fan finished for him, a little annoyed that Cong felt the need to recite something that had been drilled into them for their whole spy careers.

Cong simply smiled and pointed him to their favourite takeaway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter was far too long with this scene in and it dragged out a lot of the conversation between these two. It provides some more universe building and also plot exposition so I almost condensed it down so I could keep the few important bits in. But then I thought "why not" since these characters don't get that much attention in the fandom anyway.
> 
> I was going to add a bit more but at the time of posting this I am incredibly hungover and I feel bad about my inactivity


	3. Ying's day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chapter I was going to lengthen out and put between chapters 3 and 4. It's simply Ying's POV of the first chapter.

The day had started off with mundane normalcy.

Ying went through the monotonous motions of getting ready for work, dealing with the trivial parts of her morning with a heavy heart. The house had a bleak cloud hanging over it due to Shifu’s recent mission given to them. He was stressed. Ying could feel it. And, historically, Shifu never knew how to handle stress.

Just the day before he visited them with a new, vigorous training schedule and a requirement to spar. They obliged with hidden sighs and downcast faces. According to Shifu, the sparring had gone terribly. His usual criticisms ran slightly below the belt and danced dangerously on the edge of being unnecessarily harsh. It was more than de-motivating.

Ying didn’t miss the way her friends deflated. She supposed she looked the same.

Sitting herself down at the reception desk, she resisted the urge to hit her head repeatedly on the wood. It was far too easy to get bored at the front desk, nothing ever happened and all she did was book tours and accept donations. Taking out her phone she held it strategically out of view from the public and the CCTV cameras. Shifu could be watching at any moment.

_I’m so bored, someone talk_

**Fan:** _how can you be bored with shifu being such a dick_

_He’s just stressed_

**Fan:** _don’t make excuses for him_

_This is his way of coping, you know that_

**Jia:** _I have to agree with Fan here, he was really mean to us yesterday_

**Cong:** _Ditto that_

**Cong:** _And he took my almond cookies!!!_

**Cong:** _Who does that to a person?_

**Yu:** _I already told you I’d help you bake some more today, don’t be so dramatic_

**Yu:** _And Fan’s right, you need to stop making excuses for him_

_Not you too…_

_You guys are being ridiculous_

**Jia:** _But Shifu’s been really on edge lately since he left for that random trip_

**Jia:** _Something needs to happen, to snap him out of these habits_

**Fan:** _he needs to stop being so mean to us_

Ying turned off her phone, ignoring the onslaught of messages erupting their chat, in favour of addressing a customer approaching the desk with a piece of paper held tightly in his grip. She stared at him in recognition. He was the guy who visited the Palace almost regularly. He was always alone, with only a phone in his pocket and a few coins ready for spending at the gift shop. At first, they’d laughed him off in private. The prospect of a kung fu nerd was pretty rare, and pretty funny in an odd way. But after a while of his constant visits Fan, and Ying herself, had started to become a little suspicious of him. The whole situation was more than weird. And the fact that he was currently standing in front of her provided her mind with more to worry about.

Ying turned to him and cleared her throat. “Hello, what can I do for you?”

“I – uh, I’m looking to apply for a job here?”

“Sorry, we don’t have any vacancies here.” She lied through her teeth curtly. Well, it wasn’t _exactly_ a lie. For obvious reasons they couldn’t accept any random person into the system – but they sometimes did feel like having only five staff members was a little detrimental.

The guy looked positively crushed and Ying almost felt a twinge of guilt.

“Nothing at all? But could you – could you take a part timer?” He asked desperately.

“No, sorry.”

“Could you at least give my resume to the boss?!” Ying almost faltered at the mention of Shifu. He’d be so angry at her if she even considered the prospect of mentioning this guy to him.

He slid the paper towards her. “Consider me?!”

What she _wanted_ to do was roll her eyes back as far as possible and yell that Shifu would never allow this and he couldn’t possibly understand how much she wanted to –

“I’m really sorry,” She forced out. “but it’s out of my hands.” She hit her hand on the desk to relieve the frustration bubbling up and walked away.

She’d probably get in trouble for leaving her shift, but so what? They’d already pissed Shifu off enough just by falling back on their training, what more damage could she do just by simply leaving her shift? It wasn’t as if the reception was ever a necessary job. Ying made a bee-line for the staff room and pushed the door open with more force than intended, leaving it to swing back and forth on its hinges.

The tunnel leading from locker number 5 was hardly ever used. Even though it was undoubtedly cool if dwelled on in thought, she found that the others became bored of it very quickly. Ying, after having lived at the house for most of her life, was already used to the odd tunnel. Yu at first liked it since she was small enough to easily run through without hitting the side of the wall or injure herself, but after constantly asking Shifu to put a light in there, she vowed not to use it while it remained dark. Jia hated it from the beginning when the top of his head scraped the ceiling even when he crouched slightly. For Cong, the novelty of it had taken a while to wear off, it was only in the last few months he’d finally stopped using it and walked outside like the rest of them. Fan only went in the tunnel with Cong, it was an ongoing joke that he didn’t like the dark. (“No Ying it’s not that I’m _scared_ of the dark,” He’d always say. “I’m just wary of what could be in there!”)

Going straight to the back door of the house, she changed lighting fast, happy to be out of her work uniform. Ying had no real training plan thought out. She simply knew that she didn’t feel like working, and Shifu was already annoyed at her, so why not do something _she_ wanted to do for once.

…and that something turned out to be kicking a fence in possibly the messiest kung fu she’d ever done.

She’d only got part of her anger out on that poor fence before she heard the tell-tale sound of a body drop to the ground.

Ying turned her head immediately to find Shifu of all people, standing behind a bush, fuming.

_Oh what have I done now…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cut this because keeping it in mean that in total the first scene where Po gets knocked out is told from THREE different POVs, and that wasn't necessary. 
> 
> I personally like this chapter, since it builds the universe a little more in the direction I want it to, but it definitely is more on the boring side and drags out a little.

**Author's Note:**

> Also these are very short, hence the title of "vignettes" haha. 
> 
> This one I cut because it dragged out the first few hours of the story far too much. I'd already spent 3 long chapters on a small time span - and I don't want to bore you.


End file.
